Chapter Text
On a regular, mundane, tuesday, Alexis Ness fell face-first in love.
This love wasn’t like any love he felt before. He was so used to giving love and receiving little to nothing back. Before her, the love he gave felt more like loud devotion and obligation.
And when Alexis, stance hunched over carrying his heavy fantasy books, bumped into you, a girl running late for class, he felt something that his books would’ve described as true love. A warm, tingly feeling in his heart that spread right up to his fingertips.
You whispered a sorry as the loud clatter of books falling echoed in the hallway. Alexis remarked how it sounded like the volume of his thumping heartbeat. You hurried away, leaving him starstruck in the hall, mouth ajar, books still on the floor. Who were you?
Ever since then, he sort of developed a hallway crush on you, if that’s the term he remembers. He would catch sight of you every now and then, eyes always lingering on your figure until he walks into someone’s backpack or a locker. Kaiser always scolded him to stop staring at you and watch where he was going, but he couldn’t help it! He was cast under your spell, regardless if you knew you put it on him or not, and he wanted to chase that warm feeling of starstruck love that he experienced the first time fate connected the two of you together.
So naturally, Alexis memorized your schedule by subtly following and tracing the hallways where you entered and left from. It was easy. The crowd of students cluttering the halls provided perfect camouflage for him. By looking like he knew what he was doing, no one would suspect anything. Even if he had to mess up his perfect attendance record with a few lates, it was all worth it for you. By Friday, he had your path around school recorded and logged onto his phone. Unfortunately, he had no classes with you. Zero. He curses whoever made the timetables every day.
He wasn’t sure if you remembered his face, but he’d make sure that you’d remember him. Alexis never stopped to think if this love was obsessive or abnormal. He’d never known any other way to express this newfound type of love in other forms. This was his normal.
He needed more, craved more of your attention, so that even a tiny sliver of eye contact or touch would send him into a stroke. If only there was an event where he could properly introduce himself to you and make you acknowledge him, he would be elated.
Alexis got his answer in the middle of English. Maybe by orchestrating “accidents” like the one on that fateful Tuesday, he’d get close to you in no time.
But of course, nothing goes as planned for him.
His first scheme was to run into you again, maybe when you were carrying your books. You would drop them, he’d severely apologize, introduce himself and boom! Now you knew his name and his existence. And then, slowly but surely, he’d build a relationship out of that. It’ll be perfect.
When the next day came, luck struck. He spotted you in the hallway again, distracted on your phone while carrying your textbooks. It was exactly how he wanted this specific interaction to go. Instantly, he slightly changed his direction so that his walking path would crash into yours. Excited and already planning his apology, he closed his eyes right when you two were supposed to crash, bracing for impact.
Except it never came. He leaned forward, throwing himself at you, a polite “sorry” already halfway out his mouth. What he didn’t expect was you swerving right around him, instinctively dodging his body and continuing to walk along the hallway as if nothing happened.
Alexis stumbled forward, catching himself right before he actually fell. His face reddened with embarrassment immediately. He just humiliated himself in front of you, and the worst part was, you didn’t even care.
He quickly picks himself back up, shoving his hands in his pockets and speedwalking away from the Location of the Incident. Never again.
You walked forward to your next class without a care in your life.
Two days later, he tries again. This time, with an even better and more foolproof plan.
According to his expert research, he found that you tended to struggle in science. Not that he had the best grades in that class, but he certainly had more background knowledge than most people. So, once you’re in the library studying for your test, he’ll very nonchalantly pass by, help you out on one question, and then smoothly transition that to offering a free tutor session. It’ll be perfect! He’ll definitely stand out more in your life than just “a guy you bumped into twice,” and there might even be a chance he’ll get your phone number!
He texted Kaiser after school, apologizing for not being able to go home with him today. Right when the bell rang, he immediately made a beeline to the library. His eyes searched the tables and desks, but you weren’t there. His stomach dropped. Was his schedule wrong? Did you randomly decide to change your routine today?
He paced around, nervously biting his lip right until you walked in, Alexis breathing a humongous sigh of relief. He didn’t have to look like an idiot weaving in between shelves waiting for you anymore.
You settled down on the desk that was closest to the bookshelf where Alexis was hiding. His heart pounded as he peeked at you getting your stuff out from behind a book he randomly pulled out right behind him—apparently it was on economics. Oh god, how was he supposed to do this whole tutor thing when he can barely breathe near you?
Ness stood still right behind you, staring blankly at your computer screen, trying to muster up the courage to talk to you.
His phone dinged, too loud in the quiet of the library. Heads turned towards him, yours included. Startled, he quickly dug his phone out of his pocket, face red. Just how many times in a row would he have to humiliate himself in front of you?
And the person to blame for this text message was Kaiser. A little annoyed, he opened the message chat.
-> “Made any moves yet?”
Alexis grumbled in his head. The excessively loud notification replayed in his head again and again.
He quickly replied with a blunt no and a quick update. Kaiser laughed in his face, leaving Alexis even more slightly embarrassed. He put his phone back in his pocket, taking a deep breath to gain the confidence to approach you.
He anxiously walked towards your table, taking a peek at your science notes. He breathed a huge sigh of relief internally. Your material wasn’t too hard to work with, and he had a good grasp of what it was talking about.
He tapped you on the shoulder, and you turned around, taking your headphones off. You could see him visibly trembling.
“Um—Hi! I- I..uhh… I saw you…d-doing um.. Science and I just wanted to see if you—you needed any, uhh help with that…”
Alexis stuttered uncontrollably, unable to form his words properly out of sheer nervousness. He was freaking out, visibly and internally.
“Sorry, what did you say?” You asked because, realistically, who could understand what he said?
Alexis took a deep, unsteady breath as an effort to control himself. “I–I just wondered if you needed any help with your science…”
You blinked at him for what seemed the longest second ever recorded in Alexis’s mind. Then looked down at your work, then back up at him.
To be honest, it was a little weird for someone to go up to a random person and offer to help them with their homework, but something about this guy was endearing. Was it his puppy eyes or his stumbling, awkward demeanor?
“Uh, sure,” you agree, pulling out the chair next to you.
And Alexis freezes, because you actually agreed? His plan worked?
He hastily dropped into the seat, nervousness so strong that you could practically feel it emanating from his clothes. You laughed a little to yourself. This was a first. You were too used to overconfident, cocky guys hitting on you. It felt refreshing to talk to someone like him, even though you can see right through his intentions. Maybe you would entertain him for a while longer.
You felt a twinge of familiarity when you looked at his face again. You’ve seen him before, haven’t you?
“Were you the guy I ran over a few weeks back?”
Alexis stops, face flushing. “Uh, yeah…” he says. Unbeknownst to you, it was the one day that he would never forget in his life. The day he fell in love with you.
“So—um, what do you want help with?” he stammered out. He pinched himself hard underneath the desk. Stop acting like such a loser. You need to impress her.
You handed over your computer, showcasing the array of questions that you had to complete. Ness worked through them methodically with you, his extra background in science proving useful for once. Finding his flow, he eventually got more and more comfortable with you, stutters ceasing and replaced by words with intention, muscles relaxing, and confidence returning to his bones. Of course, the pounding in his heart never relented; it only seemed to amplify every time you opened your mouth, and the blush in his cheeks felt warmer whenever you shifted a little closer.
As you two were packing up, Alexis couldn’t help but feel so accomplished. He’ll remember this day for centuries. If only he could print out memories onto paper, his wall would be filled with tiny moments when he looked at you for too long. Pictures of your hands, your eyes, the furrow in your eyebrows as you thought out loud, the curve of your lips, and the tiny satisfaction that filled you when you got a question right with his help. He could last forever like this, drowning in just your soft movements over paper. You were his drug.
“Let me know if you need any more help, okay?” Alexis said, smiling hopefully.
“Sure,” you reply, smiling back. “Here, I’ll give you my number.” Your hand stretched out, a wordless ask for his phone.
Alexis goes rigid. His heart skips a beat, and then the other, like all his organs had collectively held its breath.
“Ah! Okay,” he sputters, hands fumbling around with his phone. Oh my god, he was really doing this because he was getting your number and this is everything he ever wanted and more and more and more and his palms won’t stop sweating and his knees won’t stop shaking and his fingers won’t stop trembling but it was fine because you were there, holding his phone, typing your number in his contacts and he stared at your eyelashes then at your fingers and anywhere but you when all he wanted was you but he was so nervous and excited and—
“Text me anytime you want, okay?” you say, snapping him out of his feverish train of thought and handing his phone back.
He walks you out of the library and waves you goodbye, still half dazed on what just happened. His phone felt heavy with the weight of a million possibilities that all included you because when was the last time he ever wanted for something so dearly and then promptly acquired it?
He didn’t feel real. This had to be some sort of dream.
However, the sky above him stretched with a beautiful baby blue, dotted with clouds that wouldn’t appear anywhere else. That had to be real. His own heartbeat had to be real, and the wind stinging his cheeks felt real as well.
It was funny how, Alexis thought, in books and texts and everything he read that was fantasy-like, scenery was described as dream-like, like it couldn’t exist anywhere else but in the imagination a human would conjure up. Magical. Miraculous. It wasn’t real, and that was why it was beautiful.
But as he breathed in the crisp air of a cold November day, the sound of leaves rustling, and the real, unpolished memory of you, he realized that reality was just as magical as his dreams.
He texted you first the moment he got home, agonizing over what to say. A simple “hi”? Or was that too little?
Eventually, after consulting with Kaiser and annoying the hell out of him, he decided on an ordinary “hello, is this __?”
It felt too normal, too basic. It felt like he was meeting you for a group project as a coworker instead of a heavy pursuit of his romantic feelings. Drowning in his thoughts, he didn’t even realize when you texted him back, a simple confirmation and a winky face.
After that, nervous greetings turned into long conversations late into the night, and Ness no longer second-guessed everything he said, showcasing his true personality, one that wasn’t dulled down by the jitter of his fingers. You liked him like this, stripped bare from anything that was weighing him down. You found a boy, lost in the world of magic. And it felt like he was growing on you, day by day. Little by little.
Maybe you did fall for the charm of Alexis Ness.